


Dividing Cruelty From Tenderness

by DreamerInSilico



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Knifeplay, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Scarification, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:54:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24884914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerInSilico/pseuds/DreamerInSilico
Summary: They generally enjoy one another's scars, but Will does not like the Verger brand at all.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 12
Kudos: 153
Collections: 2020 Eat The Rude Big Bang





	Dividing Cruelty From Tenderness

**Author's Note:**

> I had two wonderful artists who collaborated on work for this fic, [Hannibaltheass](https://twitter.com/hannibaltheass) and [MarcelWorldsmith/Heavymetalhannigram](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcelWorldsmith), and their work is embedded below.
> 
> And a big thank you to the ever-excellent [TiggyMalvern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiggymalvern) for her beta assistance and general indulgence when I flail about how writing is hard. :)

It seems inevitable that they would both be fascinated with one another’s scars.

Hannibal has left his marks on Will directly, not once but twice, and he holds nearly as much affection for the bullet scar from Chiyoh and the two from the Dragon. He may not have fired the gun or held the knife, in those cases, but he was with Will. He sewed up those wounds himself. They’re still _his_.

The first time they are naked together, Hannibal at first resists the temptation to run his fingers along the curved line across Will’s belly, which he’s seen before, certainly, but never in this context. The thing between them still feels fragile, almost dream-like, and it seems inadvisable to so blatantly dredge up the past. But Will knows - _of course_ Will knows, can read the desire as clearly as if Hannibal had spoken it aloud - and he gives Hannibal the smallest, darkest of smiles as he tugs Hannibal’s hand down to his abdomen. “You can, go ahead,” he says, and Hannibal is helpless to do anything else. The scar is slightly raised, a little rough in places. Will shivers at the touch.

“I don’t enjoy the memory of giving this to you,” Hannibal husks. It isn’t one he refuses to revisit, but he does not do so often.

“But you like that it exists,” Will observes, equally soft. Uncommonly nonjudgmental.

“Yes.”

“I don’t enjoy the memory, either. But I like what you’re doing now.”

Later, when Will licks the pale length of one of Hannibal’s wrist scars, and then bites down, Hannibal fists his other hand in Will’s hair and shudders to his core. “I like that these exist,” Will murmurs when his jaws release.

“Yes,” is all Hannibal can say.

* * *

“You don’t much care for that one,” Hannibal observes, hours later, when Will is frowning at his shoulder while his fingers skate over the brand on Hannibal’s back. Hannibal can barely feel the touch; when those nerves finally stopped screaming after the initial insult, they mostly fell rather permanently silent.

“I’d say I care quite a lot,” Will objects, quirking an eyebrow in that bone-dry way of his. “I _hate_ it.”

Hannibal has to smile. “Mason’s henchman did me one unintentional courtesy in the placement - I don’t have to think about it very often. But I suppose the same isn’t true for you.” Will has, of necessity, seen him without a shirt a great many times before this recent foray into a more sexual variety of intimacy, and now of course there are more pleasant, less prosaic reasons.

“Mmmn,” Will hums, noncommittal. But he’s still frowning, and he’s starting to dig his nails into the scar, around the edges. “It has a certain… irony to it, doesn’t it? It’s the same brand that went onto the Verger pigs, and you... well.”

“That irony was one of my sources of consolation as it was healing, in fact,” Hannibal doesn’t mind admitting. (Other such sources had prominently included cutting the face off Mason’s butcher of a personal physician/chef, and the knowledge that Mason himself was dead at Margot and Alana’s hands.)

“I would have liked the idea, once,” Will sighs. “Around the time you got these.” His thumb traces along Hannibal’s left wrist. Those scars are no more or less sensitive than the skin was originally, and the touch is beguiling. Hannibal suppresses a shiver.

“But you don’t anymore,” he notes.

“No.” The word is soft, and vehement in a way that is uniquely Will’s, all deliberate enunciation with a deadly even tone.

“A livestock brand is primarily a mark of ownership,” Hannibal offers, because he thinks that’s where this is going, and he isn’t disappointed.

Will nods slightly, fingers curling into the skin harder. His nails might leave marks, at least for a short time. “You belong to me.”

It occurs to Hannibal, just before he makes the invitation, that he is playing with fire more than is strictly necessary. Coexisting with Will is playing with fire almost by definition, but this is nevertheless slightly excessive. But doing the prudent thing, where Will is concerned, has only ever caused them both pain, whereas recklessness has occasionally reaped reward. “You could change it for me, perhaps.”

He feels as much as hears Will’s pause, and then Will pulls back to look him in the eyes. “How?” Will is nearly breathless, like Hannibal is offering him the most precious of gifts.

This is where Hannibal should set some boundaries. He doesn’t.

“However you like.”

Will smiles, slow and beautiful and _dangerous_. “Then I will.”

* * *

Breakfast the next morning, aside from being later than usual (an unspoken agreement was made to sleep in), is charged, but not in the way one might normally associate with “the morning after,” so to speak. Hannibal makes eggs benedict, and the constrained decadence seems to suit both of them, whetting an edge of anticipation. There were lines crossed last night, and also future assurances offered.

They only manage a few conversational niceties, but Hannibal can see the considering weight of intention in Will’s eyes across the table, and at times his own mind feels as sluggishly, languidly liquid as the yolk of the delicately-poached eggs or the creamy hollandaise that embellishes them. He is waiting for Will, and he savors Will’s obvious enjoyment of that fact as much as he does any component of their meal. When finally, as they are finishing the washing up, Will asks out of the blue, “What would you like me to turn it into?” it feels like the tease of a knife across a stretched rubber band. Hannibal smiles, savoring the prospect of the rubber band snapping. In for a penny, in for a pound. He’s somewhat touched that Will even asked him this, when he didn’t have to.

“You would commute one mark of ownership into another. I find myself content at the idea of wearing your design, whatever that might be.”

Will spends a while sketching, and Hannibal is direly curious to see every iteration Will’s mind had alighted on, however briefly: Will expresses his thoughts in a visual manner so very rarely, each instance is precious to Hannibal. But when he tries to approach, Will stops him with a glance and a smirk. “You can see it when it’s on you.”

He did give Will _carte blanche_ in this, didn’t he? “And the others, too, I dearly hope,” he replies.

“If you like.”

“I’ll look forward to discussing them with you.” Will bites his lip and grins in amusement at that, and Hannibal finds himself smiling, too.

* * *

_He is in the pig pen, naked, his arms bound above his head. It’s a stress position, imperfectly applied. He’s waiting for something, and suddenly, he knows what that something is._

_There is someone behind him._

_He knows it is Will, and he is comforted by this. Will’s generosity where he is concerned is capricious, but his possessiveness is reliable. He will not approve of Hannibal being kept like this by someone else._

_“I didn’t get to see you like this,” Will reflects, as if in active acknowledgement of Hannibal’s analysis. And Hannibal shrugs, inasmuch as he’s able in this state._

_“Would you have liked to?” he asks neutrally._

_“Don’t think so.”_

_“It was terribly undignified. You would have liked that,” he prods, knowing that what he says is subtly wrong, and taking pleasure in how he feels the danger spike higher from the man beside him._

_Will laughs softly. “No, ‘undignified’ was when you almost died from the bullet wound after Dolarhyde. I don’t believe for a moment you were ‘undignified’ under Mason’s care.”_

_“You didn’t like seeing me like that, though.” He doesn’t quite remember how things were, in the aftermath right now, but he does know that. Echoes of Will’s desperation reverberate on his tongue._

_“No, I suppose I didn’t.”_

_“You do like this.” He is very certain of this assessment. Suddenly Will’s lips are pressing against the nape of his neck in a smile._

_“Yes, I do. You told me to do whatever I wanted.”_

_“I did.”_

_“You should be careful with that kind of permission, Hannibal. You know me.”_

_“Yes.” His voice rasps in his throat. He is thrumming with anticipation and an entirely unusual hint of dread. Will can do anything. Hannibal has given him_ permission _to do anything._

_He shouldn’t have, but he can’t go back now._

_Will kisses his shoulder blade, light as a butterfly’s wings beating._

_Will licks up the line of his ribs, tongue hot and wet and obscene against Hannibal’s skin. Hannibal wishes Will would touch his cock, but that’s not where his attention lies, right now, and they both know it._

_Hannibal is not surprised when he feels teeth sink into the skin of his back. Will shouldn’t have the leverage to bite this strongly, this precisely along the edges of the brand, but in sleep, the illogical becomes logical. Skin parts with a dull, desperate pain as Will bites, then tears._

_When Will steps around to face him, he’s still chewing, and there’s a scrap of skin hanging out of his mouth. Hannibal fancies he can see the rampant boar, still, as it disappears into Will’s mouth._

_His back burns where Will has violently torn the skin off, and Hannibal still wants to kiss him._

_“Should’ve fried it, but I was too impatient,” Will says a moment later. His mouthful is swallowed, but Hannibal’s blood still paints his chin. “That’s what you do with pig skin down South.”_

_Hannibal rears up, licks his own blood from Will’s chin, and he can taste the traces of the fat, if not the flesh, that Will has eaten._

_“Would I taste better if I was fried to a crisp, then?” he asks, knowing they both find the blood wanting._

_“No, I’d rather have you as fresh from the source as possible,” Will replies with a bloody smile._

Hannibal wakes up in Will’s arms, and he reflects, not for the first time, upon how reckless this man has made him.

* * *

Two days later, Will receives a package, and then he smiles at Hannibal and tells him, “My design is ready when you are.”

“Tonight, then?” Hannibal replies lightly, a dark pleasure curling in his gut at the idea. Whatever is going to happen is going to be painful, he knows, but while he doesn’t take pleasure in his own pain, he does take pleasure in Will’s violence, and even more pleasure in his possessiveness. Whatever he’s chosen, Hannibal will withstand, and revel in.

“For dessert,” Will agrees with a broad-yet-secretive smile, and Hannibal thinks he may need to share an accounting of his dream. _After_ Will has done whatever he’s planned, though - clearly he has no need of additional ideas.

* * *

The sheet on the bed is crisp, white, and unfamiliar as Hannibal lies down across it, and there’s a friction in how it slides (or rather doesn’t, much) against what’s beneath, as well as a dull, impervious sort of sound with the soft impact of his body that tells Hannibal there’s a rubber one beneath it. He is meant to bleed on this, and it will be beautiful. Will confirms this seconds later when he holds a familiar folding knife within his field of view. “I sterilized it this afternoon. Is it okay?”

The question is a poignant one to Hannibal, because apparently while they’ve left “sane” behind a long time ago, and “safe” was never in the room to begin with, “consensual” consistently matters between them, nowadays. He nods against the cool fabric. “The scars it leaves will still be fine ones,” he offers, because it’s true and because the brand on his back is an ugly, unsubtle thing.

“I know. I bought tattoo ink.”

Hannibal smiles. “Good.”

“You’ll tell me if you need me to stop,” Will says, and it’s not a request.

Hannibal smiles. Will’s solicitousness still feels strange, though not in an unpleasant way. Prior to their night with the Dragon, the only time he’d experienced it was the day he killed Tobias Budge, back before Will had known. “I won’t need you to stop.”

“All the same.” He feels fingers in his hair, against his scalp, a caress, and revels in it.

“All the same,” he agrees easily, and then they are off.

He can tell by the smell that the antiseptic Will uses to cleanse his skin before beginning is ethanol. It’s an atypical choice, and one whose implications he’s pondering right up until the tip of the knife first sinks in. The nerve damage from the brand only extends so deep, apparently, and it’s something of a relief; he wanted to feel this. His world duly contracts to the slow progress of the line of fire where the knife is parting his skin.

He quickly decides he hates the parts where the earlier damage is such that he only just feels the drag of Will’s blade. The dampening of the pain feels artificial, unwanted. He wants to experience every cut with equal brightness. So much of their intimacy has been wrought in blood and death, yet somehow this tiny, insignificant violence feels… elevated. Perhaps even sacred.

He tries to catalogue the shape of the cuts to intuit the design, and of course Will can tell.

“What do you think I'm drawing for you?” The question is murmured into Hannibal's ear, Will's lips just brushing the top of it. Hannibal shudders, and just barely avoids arching into the dig of the knife. It wouldn’t do to upset the design.

“The lines are nearly all curved. Interconnecting, many in parallel,” he observes, his own voice feeling rough and thick in his throat. “I would suspect a mandala, but for the fact that you are not working in concentric circles. A maze, perhaps?”

There’s a sly note to Will’s voice when he answers, “Perhaps,” and then there’s the hot swipe of a tongue along one of the cuts and Hannibal goes completely rigid trying to control his reaction to that.

“ _Will_ ,” he breathes, like it’s the only word he knows, just now. (Maybe it is.)

“Mmm?” Will asks, enjoyment rich in his tone, and Hannibal can’t bring himself to be miffed about it, even.

“I’m going to sit up, for just a moment.” He does his best to keep the desperation out of his tone, but Will _knows_ and he can feel it. There has never been any hiding from a Will who is not actively blinding himself, for Hannibal.

“I thought you weren’t going to ask me to stop,” Will taunts, but Hannibal hears the knife when Will sets it down on the tray nearby, and surges into a sitting position if not to his feet. The skin of his back pulls, and stings, and it barely registers, because all that matters at this moment is taking Will’s lips with his.

He can taste his own blood on Will’s tongue.

He moans into Will’s mouth. Bites down on Will’s lip, then kisses him again. “I said that I wouldn’t _need_ you to stop,” he retorts roughly. “But I made no such promises about desire.”

He can feel tiny rivulets of blood sliding down his back, to pool at the hollows of his hips before dripping onto the sheet. Will is probably planning to throw the sheet away after this, and Hannibal is already resolved that that won’t happen. They will keep it, with its rust-brown reminders of this night, of what Will did to replace one mark of ownership with his own.

“You should let me get back to it, before this gets too out of hand,” Will murmurs reproachfully, though the tone is belied by the heat in the kiss that swiftly follows the admonition. Hannibal doesn’t want to stop kissing him, but the idea of feeling the knife again is strangely enticing - _Will’s laser-focused attention, completely aimed at him. Cutting neither too shallowly, nor too deep. Every detail is as intentional as it is in one of Hannibal’s kills._

“I suppose I should,” he agrees, and lies back down, a willing substrate for his love’s transmutation.

There are more lines of bloody fire, and he mostly stops trying to map them out with his mind, sinking into the sensation and the joy of Will’s attention. He wonders absently if Will is ever tempted to slice deeper, to surprise him with a true wound, even now.

Will has, of course, demonstrated his strong preference for Hannibal’s continued survival many times over at this point. As Will himself once put it, they are assuredly conjoined. But his mercurial nature is a puzzle perpetually half-solved, and so Hannibal must always allow for the possibility of a surprise, where he is concerned.

He decides that he will not express objection, if Will does hurt him more. This would be an acceptable place and time to die, even, if it comes to that.

But it doesn’t. The cuts stay consistently superficial, and the only surprises are the moments when Will chooses to lean down and lick up the blood, which is at least as enjoyable as any other surprises he might have considered creating. By the third time, the ache in Hannibal’s cock rivals that of the skin of his back, and he seeks to distract himself.

“Tell me, does it gratify you to cause me pain?” he asks, and Will’s soft, damning chuckle seems to slide against his skin like phantom fingers, almost unbearably light in comparison to his knife or his tongue.

“This isn’t pain, Hannibal. I’ve seen you in pain, and no, I don’t like that at all. But it does _gratify_ me to watch you bleed for me, and know that you like it. To know you’ll always wear the mark I’m leaving on you. You like the idea of that, too, I think, or you wouldn’t have offered.”

“You are changing a farce into a truth,” Hannibal replies, letting whimsy take him as he closes his eyes and focuses on the most recent line Will is slicing into his skin. “How could I not?”

Will makes the soft noise that he makes when Hannibal has said something he likes, but that he has no ready response for, and Hannibal smiles to himself. Another furrow is carved upon his back. He thinks, fleetingly, that it feels like Will may as well have simply excised the whole circle of skin, as he had in Hannibal’s dream, albeit far more kindly with a knife as the instrument than his teeth.

“I’m almost done with the cuts. Then I’ll clean them. Then there’s ink,” Will says. “It’ll probably sting.”

It does sting, sharply, though the sensation has more to do with the drag of the ink bottle tip against the cuts than it does the concoction itself. “Will,” Hannibal murmurs, his patience abruptly evaporating.

“Almost done,” Will soothes, and Hannibal feels a kiss pressed into his hair. The words wash down Hannibal’s spine and it might have placated him at one point, but now, now they’re too close and he needs too much...

What he’s about to say barely registers until he finds himself saying it. “I want you inside me.” (And he’s planned for this, this was the - or at least, Hannibal’s - intended conclusion for the night, but he didn’t intend to _need_ it quite so badly as he does just now.)

He hears Will’s single, sharp breath, and it’s something of a victory, but the purr of Will’s voice down against his ear a moment later rips control of the scenario again firmly out of Hannibal’s grasp. “Oh, I’m gonna be. As long as you stay still for me to finish this.”

He’s smug, far too smug, and Hannibal really shouldn’t be allowing - but this is a Will who has finally acknowledged how thoroughly he _owns_ Hannibal, has codified it in blood and ink so that it’s written on Hannibal’s skin, and what can Hannibal do, now, except wait in exquisite agony for him to do as he’s said?

When Will tells him to sit up, Hannibal is briefly arrested by the sight of his eyes: his pupils are blown as wide as they usually are on the cusp of orgasm. Then, his mouth: there is a smear of Hannibal’s blood on Will’s lower lip that has to be one hundred percent intentional, and Hannibal doesn’t even care how he’s being manipulated; he just dives in to kiss that blood back into his own mouth, swallowing Will’s chuckle down with it.

“Impatient, are you? Don’t you want to see your back, first?” Will taunts, when they break apart, breathless.

“You know that I am. And seeing it now won’t change what you’ve put on me,” Hannibal tries not to growl. “I want you. _Now_.”

The fact that Will is not yet inside him is an affront he suddenly feels with every inch of his skin, every bit of his viscera. They’ve only done this once before, but the need is familiar and immediate and absolute. The ache of the network of ink-filled slices on his back is far too shallow, even though it’s good; he needs Will deeper, and when Hannibal puts a hand to Will’s erection inside his boxers, Will seems to give up the pretense that he’s any less affected.

 _Good_.

“Ahh - Hannibal. You’ve got me. I’m here,” Will hisses, before biting down on Hannibal’s shoulder. Hannibal clutches him close, riding out the feeling of his love’s teeth in his skin. It’s already better than the knife, even though that wasn’t unenjoyable in its own right. “Get the lube.”

“Get rid of these,” Hannibal counters, tugging harshly at the waist of Will’s boxer shorts, because he’s more than ready to make some demands.

There’s a few moments of fumbling for both of them, but then Hannibal is reared up over Will’s lap, and Will’s slick fingertips are pressing upward, glancing over his perineum and circling his hole. It’s briefly fascinating to watch Will’s face as he pushes those fingers in: first, there’s a moment of near-astonishment, that Hannibal is accepting him like this. Hannibal bears down and lets his eyes narrow in pleasure - it doesn’t entirely feel good, physically, just yet, but the intimacy of it is inexorable, undeniable.

Then Will thrusts his fingers in to the second knuckle, all of a sudden, and that small cruelty is its own sort of intimacy, like the blood still slowly trickling down Hannibal’s back.

As if Will is tapped into every twist of Hannibal’s awareness ( _and really, isn’t he always?_ ), he reaches around with his other hand to the small of Hannibal’s back and swipes his thumb through the blood Hannibal knows is there.

Slowly, deliberately brings his hand back around to lick a runnel of that blood off his thumb, and then paints the rest of it across Hannibal’s chest, where it beads in the curls of hair there. “Will,” Hannibal breathes again, and leans in to kiss him, and the copper and salt on Will’s tongue is _perfect_ , just like the fingers stabbing deeper inside him as he does so.

It hurts, it all hurts, in some way or another, but he wants every bit of it. He and Will have always been _too much_ together, and the mistake they have always previously had in common, in different ways, is failing to accept that. To embrace it.

“Will, please?” he whispers, because maybe Will needs to hear it, or maybe he doesn’t - Hannibal’s already too far gone to keep score. But he does know that a direct entreaty will be effective, and it is.

“You ready for me?” The words are nearly gasped, and it’s of some comfort to know Will’s almost as strung-out as he is.

“Yes,” he husks, shifting his hips and bracing back on his hands, and a moment later he feels the blunt head of Will’s cock pressing at his entrance and - it’s _invasion_ , it’s like being sliced open in a way that bears some resemblance to Will actually cutting into him, but isn’t the same, it’s so much deeper and so much more overwhelming.

Neither of them can quite deal with Will moving inside him, at first.

It’s an overstimulation circuit; the drag of Will’s skin against Hannibal’s insides has Hannibal writhing, and Will seems caught between experiencing too much, himself, and pressing what advantage he has. Making Hannibal bend further, and Hannibal’s body is already acquiescing before his mind has any say in it.

“Are you sure?” Will whispers after a moment, the words almost a hiss. “That sounded like it hurt.”

He’s teasing, and Hannibal snarls and catches Will’s mouth with his own, drawing up his length and slamming himself back down, and yes, it _does_ hurt, and they both know it, and it doesn’t matter. There’s pleasure in an equal and rapidly-building proportion, to go with it.

Hannibal bears down, rocking his weight forward to push Will onto his back so that Hannibal can fold his body more precisely, press more of their bodies together. “You’ve been inside me from the very beginning, Will,” he hears himself rasping against Will’s collarbone.

Will’s answer is tight-voiced, accompanied by nails dragging down Hannibal’s back and only just missing the edges of the fresh cuts. “Only seems fitting that we should be able to see it.”

“Yes,” Hannibal gasps as Will grabs his hips to adjust the angle minutely, so that he’s driving almost directly against his prostate.

“Want to crawl inside you.” Will’s eyes are wild, stormy blue, and Hannibal feels like his mind is being invaded as surely as his body is. “Want you to feel me as deep as you are in me.”

“You are,” he promises. Will is so deep inside Hannibal that it would kill them both to cut him out. ( _They’ve both tried that, already_.) “What do you see, Will?” He has to ask, needs to hear what those eyes have drawn out of him.

Will smiles, both beatific and cutting. “ _Us_ ,” he breathes. “You and me and there’s nothing and no one between.” His lips turn up a bit more sharply, and he adds, “You’re about to come, though, and I’m not going to stop.”

He drives harder into Hannibal’s body, and while Hannibal would not have said, a moment ago, that he was desperately nearing the brink, it’s almost as if Will saying it makes it so. And the knowledge that Will is more than ready to pull him into the undertow and keep going….

That hits Hannibal with a jolt in his gut, the same place that Will seems to be trying to touch as he drives into him again and again. He leans farther forward, gives himself up to it and moans through the peak of his climax into Will’s shoulder, and distantly, he feels his own warm spend hit his chest.

A pearly drop of it has landed on Will’s chin, too, just below his lips, and if Hannibal physically could come a second time, he would right now, watching Will’s tongue dart out to sweep it up.

But no, he’s spent and oversensitive to the point of being shocky, but as promised, Will isn’t stopping. He’s driving himself into Hannibal’s overused ass without mercy, chasing his own pleasure and watching Hannibal’s face with a fascination that makes it impossible for Hannibal to close his own eyes and get away. That inability to retreat visually coincides with being only marginally even aware of the sounds he’s making, and surely those gasps and moans must be coming from someone else…

… but he sees Will drinking them down as much as he’s doing every other sign of Hannibal being overwhelmed, and then that’s the only thing that matters. Every thrust is too much, and yet Hannibal’s pushing into it - there’s that positive feedback loop again, the greediness in Will’s eyes for every one of Hannibal’s reactions, and Hannibal needing Will’s desire.

“Take everything, anything you want,” he breathes, finally, and that is what finally sends Will over the edge. He tenses and cries out, and Hannibal feels him spill hot and wet inside him, catching that cry in a deep, devouring kiss as he rides out Will’s orgasm. The sensation in his own body has been transmuted to a fizz in his blood, spreading all over, asserting its identity under every inch of skin, not just that which Will has marked today.

* * *

They flop down onto the bed, Hannibal heedless of the half-scabbed cuts that crack and bleed again over the sheet, and just stare at each other, hands skating over shoulders and sides and entwining fingers briefly before moving back to mutual, aimless exploration. “Thank you,” Will says, softly, after a while, and Hannibal smiles back, wondering how he can possibly convey how much he feels the balance of gratitude is his to fulfill.

“Thank you,” is what he manages to say. Then: “I take it mutual enjoyment was had from start to finish?”

“Oh, it certainly was,” Will agrees, and his eyes are deep and dark like the sea as they look into Hannibal’s. Hannibal thinks this might be the apex of happiness it is possible to achieve. “I might want to watch you bleed for me again,” Will adds, and Hannibal revises his estimate of that pinnacle.

“I’d welcome it.”

“Good.” Will gets up, and Hannibal starts to move, but Will presses him back down.

“Stay here. I’m gonna get us both some water.”

It’s not in Hannibal’s general nature to let himself float, like this, but an exception is made without conscious decision - some product of endorphins and inadvisable trust in Will - that commutes all his surroundings to a pleasant haze until there is suddenly a glass at his lips. “C’mon, I know you’d be making me drink this in your position.”

Everything about this is suddenly irritating, from his own trust to Will’s genuine solicitousness, but that irritation is defused almost as quickly as it coalesces. Hannibal drinks, and realizes that Will is right.

“I want to see,” he says, when the glass is drained.

“I’m not stopping you,” Will replies, and Hannibal can hear amusement there. He doesn’t think too hard about why he made the statement, but rather just gets up and moves toward the mirror.

When he turns to look over his shoulder, the lines suddenly make sense. The circular Verger brand has become a labyrinth of the medieval sort, with lines radiating out from it like light from a star.

“You would carve your mark upon the firmament,” he observes, watching Will watching him in the mirror.

Will doesn’t protest it, and Hannibal’s almost surprised at that. “On my firmament.”

“And am I yours, then, Will?” he can’t resist asking.

“You always have been.” Will is behind him, wrapping an arm over Hannibal’s chest without quite grazing the cuts on his back, and Hannibal has never seen something so beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr for fandom flailing as [@questionablygourmet](questionablygourmet.tumblr.com) and [@dreamerinsilico](dreamerinsilico.tumblr.com), and if you enjoyed this fic please consider [reblogging the post](https://questionablygourmet.tumblr.com/post/621760083312951296/im-excited-to-finally-post-my-eattherudebigbang)! :)


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